


If I Were a Flower

by holyrobo



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Crushes, F/F, Flowers, Longing, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 20:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16940544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyrobo/pseuds/holyrobo
Summary: The seeds had been sown when they had first met and when they start to germinate, Beau doesn't know what to do. It's a good thing that Yasha knows her flowers.(Spoilers for Episode 26 & EDIT: no longer canon exploration of some ideas due to Yasha backstory being revealed but still spoiler free for that!)





	If I Were a Flower

Beau watches Yasha pick the paper-thin pressed flower from between two leaves of her book and then set it between a different pair carefully and deliberately.

It takes her a moment, lost in the vision of delicacy before her, to remember that this is the very same woman that she has seen cleave a beast in two with one swing of her sword and wrench iron bars from their fittings like twigs from trees. She’s never touched Yasha’s hands, but Beau knows that they’re rough and calloused and she wonders how hands so worn could still be capable of such minute gentleness. A pair of hands perhaps even more blood drenched than her own, could pluck a petal from its page and handle it with such softness one would think her fingers were in fact feathers. She thinks of what it would be like to be that flower; handled like the most precious thing in the world. She thinks of how Yasha’s hands would feel, rough as they are, skirting across soft skin, leaving light tickling scratches wherever they go. She thinks of how it would feel for them to tickle the inside of her elbow, the back of her knees, the very tops of her inner thighs.

Beau averts her gaze, lazily turning her attention elsewhere, feeling guilty for sullying this moment of purity with her own dirty thoughts. If only she were a flower.

 

The next time that Beau sees Yasha’s book of flowers, she asks her about it. They’re taking a short break from travelling and Beau watches as Yasha sits atop a large tree stump near the edge of the road, pulls out her book and begins leafing through it. She gives her a moment to herself before she hops off the back of the cart and joins her on the stump.

Whenever they were in close proximity, Beau was always reminded of just how big Yasha was — she towers over her and the thickness of her muscles makes Beau’s own strong leanness look like she was withering away. It would be so easy for Yasha to kill her, Beau realises — with a swing of Magician’s Judge she’d be nothing but a spill of meat on the ground. She’s always had a thing for strong women, but Yasha might be the strongest yet.

“I wanted to ask,” Beau says gruffly, letting her spine curl casually as she makes herself as comfortable as possible on the hard wood, “why’d you keep all of those flowers in that book?”

Yasha never seems to let her posture slip, Beau notices. She is always a stiff as a sentry, and she wonders if her shoulders ever ache.

“Oh, well,” Yasha sighs, her voice as soft as a summer breeze, “I just like flowers. I like to see where I have been and what beauty was there.” Beau watches her lips move. “And most of the time, I don’t experience the beauty of a place.”

Beau wishes that she could gather every flower from the entire world and present it to Yasha. She thinks of protecting Yasha, making sure she is safe, happy and surrounded with flowers as beautiful as she is. She’s never felt like this before and it scares her that every day the feeling grows bigger and more intense. She’s never felt more than attraction before. Beau realises that she’s scared to put a label on this feeling.

A comfortable silence settles between them like Frumpkin on a warm lap. A little way away, Jester and Nott are talking about something quickly and animatedly, but Beau can’t quite catch what. The whistling wind gently whisks away their words and carries them into the trees beyond the field beside road. Summer is fading and the air is beginning to grow cool and crisp. It feels good on Beau’s nostrils as she breathes, and it feels soothing as it dances across her latest cuts and bruises.

“Hey,” she says, speaking before her mind has decided how her sentence will end, “if I were a flower, which one would I be?”

Beau watches Yasha’s eyebrows furrow in thought and then relax as she made her decision. For a moment, Beau wonders if the tug of a small smile at the corner of her full lips was reality or her imagination.

“You would be a rose, I think. Beautiful, but hard to pick because of the sharpness of its thorns.”

Beau laughs through her heartbreak and playfully punches Yasha on the arm. “I love roses,” she lies, fully intending to punch the next one she sees.

“And me,” Yasha says quietly, Beau not realising that she’s telling the honest truth.

 

When Beau sees the roses at a stand in the town they’re passing through, the name of which she has already forgotten, she buys one discreetly and crushes it spitefully under her boot in a nearby alley. It feels good for all of a minute until she begins to feel horribly guilty. She goes back to the seller and buys another one for Yasha.

“For your book,” she says.

“Oh, Beau, it’s beautiful, thank you.”

It’s the thought of the rose she crushed that causes her to drink more than she usually would tonight at the crammed inn they’re staying in. Fjord catches her out straight away, and when he tells her to slow down it only fuels her desire to drink more. She can’t stop thinking of that day she saw Yasha handle her pressed flowers like they were made of gold and how brashly she in contrast had destroyed the rose out of seething jealousy. That was always her problem, she was hard to pick. Hard to pluck, press and keep because she is loud, rude, tough to talk to and be around sometimes. She was always well aware of her faults — it was just how she was. It never used to hurt before but it hurts tonight; it hurts like a thorn lodged in her chest.

There’s enough alcohol in her veins to switch up and down, left and right. The tavern is so noisy — raucous patrons laughing, singing and clanking about. Everyone is buzzing off of liquid honey and yeast, drinking to forget their days and weeks. Beau realises that she doesn’t remember how she got here and what she’s doing. All she knows is that she’s lying down and that her mouth tastes awfully acidic and that her throat burns. She quickly connects the taste on her tongue to vomit, and figures she threw up at some point. How long ago she couldn’t tell. As to where she was — looked like a standard inn room to her, even though her eyes couldn’t focus or open very wide. She sits up and a wave of nausea rolls up from her stomach. It takes a lot of effort to stop the wave from coming out of her mouth.

Suddenly there is a gentle hand on her shoulder and she instantly readies her fist to fight until the familiar smell of sweet sweat, grass and pollen hits her. It’s Yasha, the person she wants the least right now. The person she wants the most right now.

Yasha hands her a glass of water and encourages her to take a drink. Beau finds it hard to keep the glass steady, and Yasha places her own hand under Beau’s to stop it from shaking. Yasha’s callouses on her palm brush against the rough scabs on Beau’s knuckles and her heart stops. It comes back quickly, the pressed flowers, the thorns, the rose crushed cruelly into the mud and dirt.

“If I were a flower,” Beau hiccups, not allowing the tears pricking at her eyes to fall — she’s too proud for that — “would you pick me?” She realises that she’s shaking. She’s drunk. She’s tired.

It’s clear to Beau that Yasha doesn’t understand the question from her facial expression. “In your book,” she slurs, trying her best to rephrase her thoughts, “with your flowers. If I was a flower, would you put me in your book, keep me with you forever?” If only she was sober. If only she still had her filter, she could just go on keeping this to herself forever — living in the moments she steals for herself. Watching Yasha finger her pressed flowers and picking the perfect place for them.

Yasha is quiet for a while, and Beau stresses trying to think of a witty thing to say to undo the question she’s asked but she’s drunk, tired, and there’s a part of her that needs an answer. “You know,” Yasha says, her honey voice is quiet but still drowns out the noisy bar below; “if I could pick each of the Mighty Nein and keep them safe in my book, I would. We’ve already lost too much.” The memory of Molly comes and goes like the moon pulling at the tide, like the smell of exotic spices at the market; and Beau still hasn’t dared look at the wound he’s left open inside her. “But flowers stop growing when you pick them. They stop changing.” Beau lets Yasha take the glass of water out of her hand and set it on the floor and hold her hand carefully and deliberately. “Pressed flowers lose the shine in their leaves and petals, the colour fades… If you are not loud and vibrant you would cease to be you, and I wouldn’t want any other version.”

She’s not sure if it’s the mention of Molly or the sincerity of Yasha’s words that send her tears cascading over her lower lash line, and it doesn’t matter how quickly she wipes them with her free hand — Yasha has still seen them. “You said I’m like a rose, hard to pick — too thorny.”

“I think that some flowers don’t _want_ to be picked. I’ve been waiting for you to drop your bravado, your thorns.” Beau’s eyes widen as Yasha smiles, her lips are full but chapped and she desperately wants to kiss her. “Seeing you like this, I think you’re less of a rose and more of a sunflower. Tall, bright, far too big for my book.”

“And you can eat them,” Beau adds before thinking.

“What?”

“Sorry, sorry, carry on.” She laughs and wipes her nose on the back of her hand.

“You should get some rest else you’ll be useless tomorrow. Time to sleep.” Beau feels Yasha squeeze her hand in her own and she wishes that she could commit each crack in Yasha’s skin and each rough and soft patch to memory. She feels Yasha’s hand slip out of her own as easily as it had found its way there.

“Do I at least get a good night kiss?” She coos, half joking and half genuinely trying her luck.

“No. You threw up earlier in the middle of the bar. Some got on Caleb’s shoe.”

Beau snorts. She feels her weight sink into the mattress and her mind begins to float drunkenly outside of her body. “Good night, Yasha,” she calls as the large woman slips out of the room to rejoin their friends downstairs. “Good night, Beau,” she hears her call back.


End file.
